A Cracked Glass Mask
by Kohaku-chan
Summary: This is a deep look into the character of Heero Yuy through Wufei whose realizations about the perfect soldier make him realize something about himself. References to 5M.


Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just borrowed them for a little while, but I seem to have misplaced them.  
  
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A Cracked Glass Mask  
  
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Wufei walked into the safe house quietly, not out of any effort to *be* quiet, just out habit. Making his way into the living room he approached the couch and froze with a stunned look of confusion.  
  
Heero was sleeping on the couch. That in it self was not what had caused Wufei to come to a sudden halt. Heero sometimes took naps to rest up before a mission. And it wasn't the fact that even in sleep no emotions surfaced on his face, which never changed from its stoic mask. No, it wasn't either of those things. It was the tears on his cheeks that leaked from Heero's closed eyes that made Wufei look on in shock.  
  
Heero Yuy, the mission driven, quiet, cold, perfect soldier, was crying. In his sleep. Wufei recovered from his shock enough to realize something else. If it weren't for the tears on Heero's cheeks, he wouldn't have known that the pilot was dreaming of anything distressful or that he was dreaming at all. Heero didn't move, didn't shudder, his breathing stayed deep and even, not ragged or shallow like normally would happen when someone cried.  
  
Wufei had thought Heero to be the pilot that had himself the most together, sometimes he even thought him to be a human machine; that the indifferent face he displayed was a reflection of what was inside. He also sometimes thought Heero was a bit of a hypocrite, telling others to follow their emotions.  
  
But Wufei was wrong, and now he knew it. His perceptions about Heero shattered in that instant, replaced with the sudden insight into Heero that he'd gained from seeing those tears.  
  
Heero wasn't cold and he wasn't a machine. What he was, was an extensively trained soldier, trained to show no reaction, no regard for others, no emotion. He was trained to fulfill his mission and nothing else. They'd trained him well, but not as well as they'd thought. It was all just a mask; a brittle glass mask and Wufei could see the cracks in it.  
  
Heero had covered the emotions they'd tried to train out of him with that mask, and they were there underneath, restrained and hidden until the day Heero Yuy's mission was over and he could take it off.  
  
Heero's every action, while seemingly cold and sometimes harsh, had been directed by the feelings none of them could see. His constant threats to Relena to kill her were attempts to get her to back off so she wouldn't get caught in the crossfire; of course the stupid girl didn't listen and had gotten herself stuck right in the middle of things. The old saying "you have to be cruel to be kind" came to mind when Wufei thought of the way Heero tried to keep everyone at a distance from him. Duo, who wanted to be his friend and partner. Quatre, who understood more about them than they all realized. Trowa, who had wanted to be like Heero; that someone else would want to become just like him was something that had probably scared the Wing pilot more than anything. And himself, Wufei, who's respect for Heero had put the man, no, a boy, just like himself, up on a pedestal and saw him as somehow being infallible to the weaknesses the rest of them displayed.  
  
Oh yes, he could see the cracks in Heero's mask. They were now as plain to him as the tears drying on the sleeping pilots cheeks.  
  
Heero had all the same weaknesses they did, but unlike Wufei, he didn't view them as a weakness, to him they were a strength that he used in his fight to end the war and free himself of his role as a soldier.  
  
Wufei had once thought that emotions were valuable to life, but his thoughts had changed when he'd been unable to save his wife. Emotions had not helped Wufei at all, therefore they were a weakness and only his honor, integrity and skill as a fighter would get him through the battles he saw ahead. They had, thus far, but he'd denied something of himself that had been very important to him and in doing so had become the soldier he had never wanted to be.  
  
He'd denied the pain, sorrow and regret and had used anger and revenge to drive him. Using those two emotions and calling it justice in her name was a dishonor to Meiran. The only way he could honor her memory would be to become the boy she had once thought him to be right before she died, and not continue to fight this war simply to avenge her death but to end it for peace. Emotions alone would not help him do so, and neither would just fighting using martial arts and ideals; Wufei would have to combine them. He would turn his weaknesses into strength.  
  
Gazing at Heero, he saw the tears had dried completely and decided he would leave the Wing pilot to sleep undisturbed. Just as silently as Wufei had entered the room, he left it, going down the hall to his bedroom to meditate on his new insight.  
  
Closed eyelids opened in to slits and sleepy Prussian blue eyes noted that Wufei seemed to have come to some kind of revelation and the blue orbs followed the ebony haired pilot out of the room; a faint smile appeared on Heero's lips and disappeared quickly. Wufei had finally figured out what was missing. Good. Heero gave himself a mental nod, closed his eyes once more and went back to sleep.  
  
~*Owari*~ 


End file.
